I like the pragmatic vision of inquiry. When the machine jams, we tinker around with it until it starts humming again. Pain (among other things) spurs inquiry, which we might include as an aspect of generalized adjustment. Or we can insist that inquiry is as much about action in the typical case as it is about thought. The whole organism strives away from pain toward pleasure. Philosophers love to dwell in solitude and abstractions, so we tend to forget the typical case of social problems, physical problems. Typically, we don't completely persuade the person we have to live with. But words can be exchanged that ease the situation sufficiently so that some other tension can be addressed. With physical problems, the getting of food or warmth or aspirin, etc., also eases one tension that another may dominate problem-solving consciousness.

Addressing the first part of the OP, I'd say we always already have prior knowledge. Maybe it's not the philosopher's ideal/perfect knowledge, but it's knowledge that we do in fact act on. Pragmatism answers the skeptic in terms of the knowledge we are always already acting upon. Our belief is manifest in our doings (scepticism is largely a pose or a past-time). It half-answers the problem of ambiguity in language (dissemination or what have you) in terms of stressing the consequences of a belief. If two beliefs lead to the same actions in the relevant cases, they aren't different in an important way. (Also this insistence on action is refreshingly worldly, if one likes the image of philosophy as (street-)wise as opposed to priestly or apart.)

Maybe it's not the philosopher's ideal/perfect knowledge, but it's knowledge that we do in fact act on. — Hoo

Indeed Plato thought that our necessary prior knowledge was not justified true belief but merely true belief - pragmatic belief.

I guess the question is whether we want more than solid pragmatic knowledge and, if so, why? I have some notion of why (as a math guy), but perhaps this quest for perfect certainty (humorously) leads one to a repudiation of the original goal. As a crude analogy, we can think of philosophy as circle-squaring and post-philosophy as playful conversation opened up by an impossibility proof. Of course, this impossibility "proof" is itself just solid, pragmatic knowledge. I'd say that we end up redrawing the image of the wise-man, giving him more flesh and letting the laughter of the gods ring in his ears. But then I've been ferociously influenced by Nietzsche. As for Plato, I've only dabbled. Some of it's great, but sometimes the dialogue seems silly, stilted, slow. (The Apology is grand, of course, but I can't completely buy Socrates as hero. It's easy for an old man to throw his life away in such a grand way. A younger man doing the same thing might look like a fool to us. I hope you'll forgive this digression: I really think these gut-level attitudes are more important than we tend to acknowledge.).

I think Meno's Paradox is only an apparent paradox. It appears to be a paradox by dint of its underlying assumption that there cannot be any pre-discursive understanding; an assumption which I think is shown to be patently false, if you consider the case of pre-linguistic humans and other animals.

Perhaps this is relevant:

In contradistinction to the natural goodness of thought in the traditional image, Deleuze argues for thought as an encounter: "Something in the world forces us to think." (DR 139) These encounters confront us with the impotence of thought itself (DR 147), and evoke the need of thought to create in order to cope with the violence and force of these encounters. The traditional image of thought has developed, just as Nietzsche argues about the development of morality in The Genealogy of Morals, as a reaction to the threat that these encounters offer. We can consider the traditional image of thought, then, precisely as a symptom of the repression of this violence. — IEP

Or one could also say that "good thought" is a mode we can afford to slip into when our desperate but creative or myth-making (myth-breaking) thought has done its job and is asleep
till the next alarm. Heartbreak, health failure, grinding poverty: I suspect any of these move us far, far away from Meno's paradox. (Though obviously this forum is the perfect place to discuss such a thing as well as discuss the discussing of it.)

I cannot bring myself to think of thought in terms either for or against any myth such as "the natural goodness of thought in the traditional image", because to do so would be just another example of myth-making. And we should recognize that thought is prior to myth. Thought is responsible for individuation and recognition, and at least in regard to that dimension of activity we can rightly attribute thought to animals.I think the conceptual component of perception, without which perception would be nothing but blank staring at meaningless patterns, is inherent in any percipient's ability to recognize what is perceived.

This is elaborated consciously in the assigning of category to what is perceived. Generality is prior to particularity in this sense; that any 'this' is empty unless it is 'one of these'. So, if immediate experience consists in being presented with a series of unrelated patterns, or even disconnected entities, then the real work of thought consists in penetrating to the order and relations that are implicit in the perceived regularities, and the unities they evoke in thought whether poetic or scientific; and to the recognition of the regularities which is enabled by memory, and which is conceived in terms of invariance. Of course, there must be an element of pure trust at work for thought to operate this way, and trust is anything but fashionable these days.

So, the implications of regularity and the justification for any postulation of invariance are not given in immediate experience, as Hume was keen to emphasize. But, firstly, nothing at all is given in mere perception as already noted, and secondly, if the idea of thinking in terms of regularity, invariance, unity and causation, in accordance with principles that seem self-evident to us, is not to be trusted to yield important results, then all of our discourses, apart from, at first glance, those which irrationally acknowledge and trust the God of science (but if the implications are followed through, even those), are rendered on the same flat plane of the unwarranted.

This is the aporia at the heart of modern scientism and the fashionable kind of philosophy based on it which are both biased towards the empirical, and away from any trust in the intuitive and the purely rational. The continental philosophers as much as the analytic philosophers are responsible for bringing modern philosophy to this impasse. That said, both of these traditions have their own valuable practical (as opposed to genuinely theoretical) contributions to philosophy; the first to the creativity, and the second to the rigour, of thought.

In short, we can think far better when we trust our thinking, just as we can perform far better athletically when we trust our bodies. Of course, in both cases it is important not to overestimate our capacities and abilities.

I cannot bring myself to think of thought in terms either for or against any myth such as "the natural goodness of thought in the traditional image", because to do so would be just another example of myth-making. And we should recognized that thought is prior to myth. — John

Perhaps I abuse the word "myth" and use it eccentrically. One of Popper's essays described science as a second order tradition on the first order tradition of myth that included the civilized criticism of myth. The myths were no longer sacred. The second order tradition was itself a sort of sacred meta-myth. But I'm not so sure we can escape myth-making. Why would we eschew myth? If not in the name of the myth of the inferiority of myth? I suppose 'myth' is synonymous with 'hypothesis' here. From this perspective, myth and thought are tangled concepts, but perhaps should stop using "myth" this way.

So, if immediate experience consists in being presented with a series of unrelated patterns, or even disconnected entities, then the real work of thought consists in penetrating to the order and relations that are implicit in the perceived regularities, and the unities they evoke in thought whether poetic or scientific; and to the recognition of the regularities which is enabled by memory, and which is conceived in terms of invariance. Of course, there must be an element of pure trust at work for thought to operate this way, and trust is anything but fashionable these days.

So, the implications of regularity and the justification for any postulation of invariance are not given in immediate experience, as Hume was keen to emphasize. But, firstly, nothing at all is given in mere perception as already noted, and secondly, if the idea is not to be trusted that thinking in terms of regularity, invariance, unity and causation, in accordance with principles that seem self-evident to us, then all of our discourses, apart form those which irrationally acknowledge and trust the God of science, are rendered on the same flat plane of the unwarranted. — John

I agree with just about all of this. I am suspicious of "immediate experience" being taken too far, though. I think concept and sensation and emotion are terribly tangled in experience, though I just used words to seemingly break it into a trinity. I'm no fan of insincere doubt. We always already "really and truly" believe quite a lot, I'd say, despite our dutiful protestations in the name of what strange investment? (There are candidate answers, of course, but I'll stop there.)

This is the aporia at the heart of modern scientism and the fashionable kind of philosophy based on it which are both biased towards the empirical, and away from any trust in the intuitive and the purely rational. The continental philosophers as much as the analytic philosophers are responsible for bringing modern philosophy to this impasse. That said, both of these traditions have their own valuable practical (as opposed to genuinely theoretical) contributions to philosophy; the first to the creativity, and the second to the rigour, of thought. — John

I can relate to all of this. I'm willing to assert the importance of what might be called intuitive. I'm always invoking "images of the hero," because I see reason as the tool of the unreasonable human heart. I don't think the heart flails around blindly, though. Instead it "thinks" or rather desires in images. (Really there is a reason-heart unity, or we couldn't "reprogram" ourselves.) Rigor has some pragmatimatic justified. We skin our knees if we miscalculate. But posing as rigor or reason incarnate can also serve, for instance, the irrational heart's investment in a particular vision of the intellectual hero. Rigor is sexy or intimidating, etc. It's hard to ignore that philosophy tends to attract males especially. It's even hard to ignore the male preoccupation with status and hierarchy, from which I wouldn't dream of denying in myself. So I think all of this is lurking behind the "reasonable" reasons folks give for investment in either tradition or in a fashionable thinker. Who would you rather quote, for instance? Spengler or Derrida? And yet Spengler is probably more useful (as he was to the Beats) to those not playing the "have you read?" game or toiling in academia.

For if we don't know what we are looking for, how can we look for it? And if we know what we are looking for, why are we inquiring? — darthbarracuda

There's something in a box but I don't know what that thing is. I want to know what's in the box. Would you say that I know what I'm looking for or that I don't know what I'm looking for?

There's something in a box but I don't know what that thing is. I want to know what's in the box. Would you say that I know what I'm looking for or that I don't know what I'm looking for? — Michael

Well, Pandora,talking of myths, I'm inclined to say you don't, and when you find it, you'll wish you hadn't. But life begins with 'suck it and see', and probably ends the same way.

I wonder about this whole line of discussion as it applies to the Meno. Plato's Meno is an epistemological dialogue about what virtue is, can it be taught and how it is related to knowledge. It is not a phenomenological quest, so yes the paradox is only apparent but that is not the point...the point of the dialogue is the difference between knowledge in its strictest sense and true opinion.

There's something in a box but I don't know what that thing is. I want to know what's in the box. Would you say that I know what I'm looking for or that I don't know what I'm looking for? — Michael

I'm amazed you already know what a box is, and that it's the sort of thing something would be in. How did you come to know that? :)

Perhaps I abuse the word "myth" and use it eccentrically. One of Popper's essays described science as a second order tradition on the first order tradition of myth that included the civilized criticism of myth. The myths were no longer sacred. The second order tradition was itself a sort of sacred meta-myth. But I'm not so sure we can escape myth-making. Why would we eschew myth? If not in the name of the myth of the inferiority of myth? I suppose 'myth' is synonymous with 'hypothesis' here. From this perspective, myth and thought are tangled concepts, but perhaps should stop using "myth" this way. — Hoo

I don't think you have really "abused" it. I think the difference between myth and science is one of degree and orientation, not so much one of kind. So, science seems to be oriented towards the perceptible world, to find its clues leading to causal explanations, that are themselves couched in physically conceived terms, but involve conceived forces which are not themselves directly observable. Then those forces are modeled mathematically and used to make predictions about what will be observed under certain conditions. And some of those scientific theories have been extraordinarily successful with their predictions. In regard to science being different to myth by degrees: I think science is far more methodologically developed and systematically unified than myths generally are, as well as being far more predictively successful.

So, I think you are right that there is always a myth-making (that is, speculative) character to science; and that it hasn't lost the characteristic of appealing to occult (in the sense of hidden) unifying and universal forces, to form the basis of its explanatory hypotheses.

I'm willing to assert the importance of what might be called intuitive. I'm always invoking "images of the hero," because I see reason as the tool of the unreasonable human heart. I don't think the heart flails around blindly, though. Instead it "thinks" or rather desires in images. (Really there is a reason-heart unity, or we couldn't "reprogram" ourselves.) — Hoo

Yes, and we would have no reason to reprogram ourselves, in any case, if we felt nothing. It seems you are saying that we generally believe what it suits us to believe and that we marshall our reasoning around those preferences, rather than it being the case that reasoning, determines or preferences in an unbiased way. If so, I would certainly agree. But, I also tend to think that apart from the polemic of believing/ not believing there is also the possibility of being openly unbiased. I also think that if this disposition is achieved, then the deliverance of intuition will be all the more reliable, and may actually be self-evidently convincing. For example, mystical experience ( if coupled with a truly impartial 'scienitifc' attitude) can lead to 'knowledge' which is beyond doubt for the knower, This is not say it can be rendered into a discursive form which will, merely by dint of its logic, be convincing to those whose preconceptions are not compatible with it, though. It is kind of like the idea of 'direct knowing' in Zen. What is known in this way is simply beyond doubt and not something which could ever become the subject of a sensible argument. I think it is a uniquely modern tendency that is present in many people today to deny themselves any truck with knowledge of 'that sort'. On the other hand, I would say that if there is a truly rich kind of knowledge, then that is it. And it can certainly inform literature and poetry and the other arts, even if it cannot be justified by mere rational thought.

So I think all of this is lurking behind the "reasonable" reasons folks give for investment in either tradition or in a fashionable thinker. Who would you rather quote, for instance? Spengler or Derrida? And yet Spengler is probably more useful (as he was to the Beats) to those not playing the "have you read?" game or toiling in academia.

Yes, there is a lot of fashionability about these days. I can't comment on Spengler, though, since I haven't read him. I like some of Derrida's inventiveness, but I am not so thrilled by his impenetrability. I'm not convinced he would be worth the effort for anything more than a cursory reading of him. Hegel, or Heidegger, on the other hand....

Thanks for the great response, John.

I think the difference between myth and science is one of degree and orientation, not so much one of kind. So, science seems to be oriented towards the perceptible world, to find its clues leading to causal explanations, that are themselves couched in physically conceived terms, but involve conceived forces which are not themselves directly observable. — John

I generally agree. Some of most powerful myths seem turned "inward" toward the emotional aspect of reality. On the other hand, science dominates the measurable. I like that you mention the "conceived forces." We need them. My theory is that the explanations you mentioned are deductions from postulated necessity. It's a fine way to use "explain." There doesn't even seem to be another. But perhaps you'll agree that all the necessity we postulate (and fail to falsify or learn to respect as actual necessity) must be itself contingent. So there is a "just because" that seems to haunt everything. "Thrown-ness." "It's not how the world is but that it is that is the mystical."

...we would have no reason to reprogram ourselves, in any case, if we felt nothing. It seems you are saying that we generally believe what it suits us to believe and that we marshall our reasoning around those preferences, rather than it being the case that reasoning, determines or preferences in an unbiased way. If so, I would certainly agree. — John

Well put. I think James nails it here:

The individual has a stock of old opinions already, but he meets a new experience that puts them to a strain. Somebody contradicts them; or in a reflective moment he discovers that they contradict each other; or he hears of facts with which they are incompatible; or desires arise in him which they cease to satisfy. The result is an inward trouble to which his mind till then had been a stranger, and from which he seeks to escape by modifying his previous mass of opinions. He saves as much of it as he can, for in this matter of belief we are all extreme conservatives. So he tries to change first this opinion, and then that (for they resist change very variously), until at last some new idea comes up which he can graft upon the ancient stock with a minimum of disturbance of the latter, some idea that mediates between the stock and the new experience and runs them into one another most felicitously and expediently. — James

I like to think of a table with uneven legs. We put more weight on some beliefs than on others. Then we are also shaped by different histories. If a certain harmony of beliefs and lifestyle obtains, the system stabilizes. A big (and yet simple) insight for me was that there was simply no reason to expect a single stable point at infinity to which all earnest inquirers must eventually their way. Why not many, varying (sufficiently) correct belief-systems?

But, I also tend to think that apart from the polemic of believing/ not believing there is also the possibility of being openly unbiased. I also think that if this disposition is achieved, then the deliverance of intuition will be all the more reliable, and may actually be self-evidently convincing. For example, mystical experience ( if coupled with a truly impartial 'scienitifc' attitude) can lead to 'knowledge' which is beyond doubt for the knower. — John

I agree. Probably it helps to envision unbiasedness as something sacred or heroic in order to move in that direction. Indeed, I suspect most of thinking types adopted such a goal. It's almost the "will to Truth" itself. And while I eventually became suspicious of the "will to Truth," I only did so in what felt like the pursuit of the unbiased truth about truth. You mention Hegel below. I was especially moved by Kojeve's (mis-)reading of Hegel. The "wise man" is stable in his satisfaction and therefore unbiased. He's a clean, flat mirror; the surface of still water. I also like Bukowski's "Don't Try."

I completely agree about knowledge that is beyond doubt for the knower. As a matter of prudence and style we may regulate who we discuss it with. (Hell, I chose to study math because I anticipated that the formal study of philosophy would be slavishly depersonalized and compulsively safe as milk. I only say what I really think to true friends and of course anonymously.

This is not say it can be rendered into a discursive form which will, merely by dint of its logic, be convincing to those whose preconceptions are not compatible with it, though. It is kind of like the idea of 'direct knowing' in Zen. What is known in this way is simply beyond doubt and not something which could ever become the subject of a sensible argument. I think it is a uniquely modern tendency that is present in many people today to deny themselves any truck with knowledge of 'that sort'. On the other hand, I would say that if there is a truly rich kind of knowledge, then that is it. And it can certainly inform literature and poetry and the other arts, even if it cannot be justified by mere rational thought. — John

I never suspected we were this much on the "same page." Certain perspectives or investments are just foreclosed to those with other incompatible perspectives or investments. You basically nailed my objection to what I call scientism. It's just another righteous, self-hobbling heroic pose. I'm not against heroic poses/masks (they are almost "spirituality" itself, in my view, though the mask and the face become one) but only against (to me) ugly or weak poses/masks. Science deserves respect, but it makes for a sorry god. On the flip-side, I don't believe in ghosts, etc. I personally find a happy medium by viewing the spiritual in terms of concepts and emotions. "Since feeling is first," that's plenty. If the right things are "figuratively" true (for me), then that's more than enough -- though we do want a few people to "get" our poetry. The "dragon" wants to chat with other "dragons." If a person knows that they know, then it's not about argument but instead about discussion, the trading of passwords and slight tweaks. I insist on myth so much to batter at the fetishism of "mere rational thought," itself adored irrationally.

I can't comment on Spengler, though, since I haven't read him. I like some of Derrida's inventiveness, but I am not so thrilled by his impenetrability. I'm not convinced he would be worth the effort for anything more than a cursory reading of him. Hegel, or Heidegger, on the other hand.... — John

I love Hegel, largely through secondary sources. Kojeve's "Introduction" blew my mind. (Others were also good, but I'm sentimental about Kojeve's book).

This question could easily be given a satisfactory answer,namely, you both know what you are looking for and don't know what you are looking for,simultaneously.

I shall now explain the apparent contradiction.

The explanation lies in the fact that the word "know'' could be used in a sense which allows both of these statements to be true at the same time.The sense which I refer to is as follows:

1.You know what is inside the box in the sense that you are aware of at least one property of the thing contained within the box(for an example,you know that the object in question is of the right size that permits it to fit within the box,which is a piece of information which counts as knowledge about the object).

2.You do not know what is inside the box in the sense that you are not aware of the other properties of the object in question in addition to the properties mentioned above.Thus since you have no knowledge of these other properties,in this sense,you do not know what is inside the box.

I hope this clears up your paradox.

Yep, that's what I was hinting at. The paradox rests on a misleading/ambiguous dichotomy. I know what I'm looking for in the sense that I know that I'm looking for what's in the box, and so the enquiry is not impossible, but I don't know what I'm looking for in the sense that I don't know what's in the box, and so the enquiry isn't unnecessary.

. I know what I'm looking for in the sense that I know that I'm looking for what's in the box, — Michael

I don't think that's on par with looking for the answer to a question. The correct answer will be specific. The content of the box need not be.

I think of it as pointing out that students are not blank slates. In some areas, education is pointing a student to what the student already knows... in logic, some areas of math, some features of morality, etc.

Chomsky would say the knowledge is innate... maybe biological. Plato said anamnesis....you remember the knowledge of the World Soul from which you arose (or maybe a neo-platonist would say that?)

World soul, biology... what's the difference?

I don't think that's on par with looking for the answer to a question. The correct answer will be specific. The content of the box need not be. — Mongrel

What if the question is "what's in the box?"

Yea. You're showing that the paradox doesn't generalize far enough to encompass all knowledge. Some things we do learn empirically.

Was the point of the paradox to generalize that far? Or was it to just say that very fundamentally (for instance in the logic or morality departments).. you can't teach a man something he doesn't already know?

But perhaps you'll agree that all the necessity we postulate (and fail to falsify or learn to respect as actual necessity) must be itself contingent. So there is a "just because" that seems to haunt everything. "Thrown-ness." "It's not how the world is but that it is that is the mystical." — Hoo

Yes, it seems that we must run out of necessity somewhere along the line. If there are laws of nature then they impose necessity on phenomena. But what is it that imposes necessity on the laws themselves? Some higher law still? But what imposes necessity on that?... and so on...

I guess the only answer could be something 'eternal being'. Its 'always-having-being' puts it beyond both necessity and contingency. Spinoza's definitions of contingent and necessary being are, respectively: 'an existence dependent on something' and 'an existence not dependent on anything'.

So, I would agree with you that being is the mystical, and the necessary (the latter, at least by Spinoza's definition).

On the flip-side, I don't believe in ghosts, etc. I personally find a happy medium by viewing the spiritual in terms of concepts and emotions. — Hoo

I am impartial about ghosts. I do agree that since thought and emotion are all that we are; or at least are what make us human, that they can be rightly equated with the spiritual. Dogma is the fossilization of thought and emotion; the antithesis of the spiritual.

I guess the only answer could be something 'eternal being'. Its 'always-having-being' puts it beyond both necessity and contingency. Spinoza's definitions of contingent and necessary being are, respectively: 'an existence dependent on something' and 'an existence not dependent on anything'. — John

I see what you mean, but don't you find it hard to think both of beginning-less time and also the beginning of time? So that would at least damage this eternal being's use as an explanation. I wouldn't say that such a thing couldn't "be" somehow, but I often reflect on what a god or a guru or any given X can be for us. I'm tempted to say that nothing can be greater than the thinking mind, at least for the thinking mind, precisely because the thinking mind can only "chew" what will fit "inside" it. So gods would have to be experienced in terms of sensations and emotions, for instance, and we only understand the guru to the degree that we already are the guru. Anyway, the "time glitch" I started with is one more reason I like the "engineer" metaphor. Hume's problem of induction also suggests a sort of glitch (some gap between inductive and deductive faculties that suggests that the projection of necessity is a sort of "mental primitive").

Dogma is the fossilization of thought and emotion; the antithesis of the spiritual.

"...for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

It might seem something of a weird or even perverse thought, but I don't think time could have had a beginning, because a beginning can coherently be thought only as a beginning in time.

Likewise, being cannot itself be, but is rather the be-ing of beings, so to speak (sound enough like Heidegger?). I think that to be must be to be for us; because even to be in itself is to be in itself for us. This was Hegel's main point against Kant, at least as I read him. There is, thus, no coherent distinction between the in itself and the for us, except for us. I think, therefore, that in a sense probably beyond what Hegel Himself intended, the "rational is the real".

So, for me the whole question about the intelligibility of nature is a kind of furphy. There really is no nature apart from thought! But that is not an idealist avowal, because there really is no nature apart form material, either. I think of the Buddhist notion of 'interdependent arising' in this connection. So, if there is no nature apart from thought, then nature itself just is intelligibility itself. After all what else other than nature, of one kind or another, be it physical, human, mathematical or linguistic, could be intelligible?

For me Hume's problem of induction just sharply highlights the fact that induction is not pure deduction from axiomatic first principles, but speculation based on observed invariances. I think this must have been obvious long before Hume, but he was the first to shine a spotlight on something that was probably previously simply taken for granted.

Likewise, being cannot itself be, but is rather the be-ing of beings, so to speak (sound enough like Heidegger?) — John

I do like this theme.( I enjoyed Steiner's Heidegger.) Being is the "light" that discloses beings. And Being-as-concept is itself disclose by...Being-under-erasure? It's both profound and empty. I'm also interested in that which exceeds the concept, even as the concept structures it and makes it speak-able. It's 'sensation-emotion' or the overflow (underflow?) or the sensual that Feuerbach opposed to Hegel's concept-blob.

I think that to be must be to be for us; because even to be in itself is to be in itself for us. This was Hegel's main point against Kant, at least as I read him. There is, thus, no coherent distinction between the in itself and the for us, except for us. I think, therefore, that in a sense probably beyond what Hegel Himself intended, the "rational is the real".
So, for me the whole question about the intelligibility of nature is a kind of furphy. There really is no nature apart from thought! But that is not an idealist avowal, because there really is no nature apart form material, either. I think of the Buddhist notion of 'interdependent arising' in this connection. So, if there is no nature apart from thought, then nature itself just is intelligibility itself. After all what else other than nature, of one kind or another, be it physical, human, mathematical or linguistic, could be intelligible? — John

I agree. The distinction between the self and world or subject and object exists within a unified concept system, except that concept becomes the wrong word, since things and concepts are one and the same in a peculiar sense. This concept system is "immersed" in the nonconceptual like a spiderweb in the fog or like leaves on a branch in the wind. We know there is redness other than the idea of red and pain other than the idea of pain, but we can't deliver it via marks and noises. Sort of like Being-as-concept and Being-under-erasure.
Nature as concept ("what-happens") seems like a system of projected necessities. So, yeah, it is intelligibility itself. Even the "supernatural" would have to be fit into this system of nature to be intelligible, it seems to me. A "miracle" would just modify our notion of the possible or the to-be-expected. There's nothing outside the concept-system, for "thing-hood" is intelligible unity, always in relationship except for the paradoxical or infinite notion of the "whole." The totality is the only "miracle" one might say, but it's not a miracle that violates a projected necessity. It's just (apparently) radically contingent, because there's no-thing outside it to put it into necessary relationship with.

For me Hume's problem of induction just sharply highlights the fact that induction is not pure deduction from axiomatic first principles, but speculation based on observed invariances. I think this must have been obvious long before Hume, but he was the first to shine a spotlight on something that was probably previously simply taken for granted. — John

But don't we ferociously expect the future to resemble the past? It's so gut-level and yet not deductively valid. He published an extremely short version of the treatise as a marketing ploy, and this was at the center of it. I think his true target was "metaphysical" necessity. Maybe deductive necessity is the kind of necessity we project without deductively established warrant. This too is both empty and profound, because we are going to go on expecting not to fall through the floor when we step out of bed.

I actually don't agree that we have no rational warrant for expecting the invariances we are so familiar with to continue to be. There is a huge (relative to each individual at least) body of evidence that seems to show there are no reliably recorded incidences of contraventions of the so-called laws of nature (it was probably a bit hard to record any such miraculous events that might have occurred prior to visual recording technologies, though). I would dare say none of us can claim to have personally witnessed such an event.

Since we can only go on what we have experienced, and since nature cannot even be intelligible to us at all unless it is conceived as lawful, and since even if we did witness an apparent contravention we could have no way of knowing that it was not just a manifestation of some law that we are not yet familiar with; I would say we have pretty good warrant for expecting things to continue as we have known them to be thus far. In fact I would say that the nature of thought is inseparable from the nature of the world.

I actually don't agree that we have no rational warrant for expecting the invariances we are so familiar with to continue to be. There is a huge (relative to each individual at least) body of evidence that seems to show there are no reliably recorded incidences of contraventions of the so-called laws of nature (it was probably a bit hard to record any such miraculous events that might have occurred prior to visual recording technologies, though). I would dare say none of us can claim to have personally witnessed such an event. — John

I wouldn't say that we have no rational warrant but only no deductive warrant. Because we can't live without induction, it's counterproductive to deny its strange rationality. But I do think your support it appeals to the same uniformity that you are trying to prove. It's something like: the future will be infer-able from past in the future because the future has been infer-able from the past in the past. the future resembled the past in the past. Don't get me wrong. Your argument appeals to me. But it seems like your assuming the uniformity of nature to establish the uniformity of nature.
https://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/induction.html

Since we can only go on what we have experienced, and since nature cannot even be intelligible to us at all unless it is conceived as lawful, and since even if we did witness an apparent contravention we could have no way of knowing that it was not just a manifestation of some law that we are not yet familiar with; I would say we have pretty good warrant for expecting things to continue as we have known them to be thus far. In fact I would say that the nature of thought is inseparable from the nature of the world. — John

I agree that lawful = intelligible. But do we expect the law of gravity to switch from an inverse square to an inverse cube law? Or the speed of light in a vacuum to halve? (Seems logically possible and intelligible.)
Just to be clear, I do expect and expect everything else to expect things to continue along as we have known them so far (with the predictable "deviations"). But I think our warrant is just hard-wired prejudice or gut-level assumption of the uniformity of nature. Support for "nature is uniform" is naturally going to be empirical, but why should observation have weight unless the uniformity of the past and the present with the future is assumed?

But it seems like your assuming the uniformity of nature to establish the uniformity of nature. — Hoo

I think I'm more saying that nature as far as we can tell is and has always been uniform, even if only statistically, and not deterministically so, and that, secondly, a nature that were not uniform would be utterly unintelligible to us, and that, lastly, it makes no sense to speak of any purported lack of uniformity 'manifested' by a 'nature' unknown to us.

So, you ask

why should observation have weight unless the uniformity of the past and the present with the future is assumed? — Hoo

,
but I think that is the wrong question, because unless the present were uniform with the past and future, it is not merely that observation would "have no weight" but that there could be no observation in the first place.

I think I'm more saying that nature as far as we can tell is and has always been uniform, even if only statistically, and not deterministically so, and that, secondly, a nature that were not uniform would be utterly unintelligible to us, and that, lastly, it makes no sense to speak of any purported lack of uniformity 'manifested' by a 'nature' unknown to us. — John

I agree that nature has been reliably uniform and that a lawless nature would be unintelligible. But it does make sense to speak of a violation of expectation.

Perhaps the most famous illustration of the problem of induction was given not by Hume, but by Bertrand Russell. Russell imagines a chicken on a farm. The farmer feeds it every day, so the chicken assumes that this will continue indefinitely. One day, though, the chicken has its neck wrung and is killed.[6] — Wiki

Perhaps I am not really disagreeing with you, but to me Russell's example is not a good analogy because the chicken should not expect invariant behavior from something as unpredictable as a human being. So, the example seems plausible but inapposite. A less plausible but more apposite scenario would be, for example, if the chicken was racing toward the open door of her pen, trying to desperately to escape a pursuant fox and found that she ran at full speed into an invisible 'wall' where the visible door opening was, thus breaking her neck and dying; but then miraculously coming back to life and reverting to a two day old chick in a matter of seconds. Meanwhile all the rest of nature around her suddenly burst into increasingly intense and rapid transformations such that nothing could be recognized at all, whereupon she ceased to be a discrete entity at all and disappeared into the swirling chaos.

So, if our expectations were to be truly violated everything else would be too, including our very existences. Even if you deny this and say there might just be some examples of variance where invariance usually reigns; then we would simply conclude that some unknown new force was at work, and try to work out if its variance were itself predictable.

I don't think our views are that far apart. I'm just arguing that induction is psychologically rather than logically grounded. It's mostly just a "gee whiz" point, since I can't help but trust induction like everyone else, despite this gap that I see between logic and expectation (which can be understood alternatively as a hard-wired premise of uniformity in nature.)

That said, I continue the exploration. How would the chicken determine that a man was nothing to put its trust in, if not empirically? "Humans have violated expectation before, so we should (or just do) expect them to violate expectation again. We humans have learned not to trust induction without reservations, but we seemed to have learned this inductively. "Inductions have failed in the past, so they might fail in the future." Induction is to us as the human is to chickens, perhaps.

I agree that we strive to put anomalies or variances under a law. I agree that anomalies can only appear via a contrast effect in a largely invariant or law-governed context. I remember a Ted talk where the speaker stressed that consciousness is especially directed at violations of unconscious expectation. So the expected becomes an invisible background. The mind deals with the troubling or opportune "figure" against this ground. He painted a vivid picture of the mind as a humming expectation machine.